All phones need SIM cards, but they don’t all need SIM cards of the same size. In fact, there are three different sizes in use, namely Standard, Micro and Nano.
Đang xem: Difference: micro sim vs nano sim vs mini sim cards
We’ve created this guide to help you tell between them and know which one you’ll need. Plus, you’ll find some advice for what to do if you end up with a SIM card that’s the wrong size for your phone.
What is a Standard SIM card?
A Standard SIM card is, despite the name, not the most umakarahonpo.commmon or ‘standard’ SIM card you’ll find. But it was when it launched – hence the name.
The name also reflects the fact that this is the largest type of SIM card available at 15 x 25mm. You umakarahonpo.comuld think of it as a full size card while the other two are cut down.
However the chip is the same size in all three. This is the important bit that stores your data, so with a Standard SIM card you just have a lot of plastic around it.
The Standard SIM card is the oldest of them (introduced way back in 1996) and so while it was once used in many handsets, including big-name ones like the iPhone 3GS, it’s rarely used in phones now – some feature phones and very basic mobile phones still use these, as do some old handsets, but smartphones made in the last six or seven years almost certainly won’t.
What is a Micro SIM card?
A Micro SIM card is one size down from a Standard card. So it’s a little smaller, umakarahonpo.comming in at 12 x 15mm. As noted above the actual chip is the same size, so it’s just the bit around it that’s smaller.
Having been introduced back in 2003, this card also isn’t widely in use anymore, with most handsets having moved on to newer Nano SIM cards, discussed below.
If your phone is a few years old, but too new for a Standard SIM card, then it might use a Micro SIM, but handsets made in the last five years generally don’t. As an example, the Samsung Galaxy S5 launched in 2014 uses a Micro SIM, but the following year’s Galaxy S6 uses a Nano one.
What is a Nano SIM card?
Nano SIM cards are the smallest of the bunch, umakarahonpo.comming in at 8.8 x 12.3mm, they’re also the newest, having made their debut in 2012. This has almost no border around the chip so it’s hard to imagine SIM cards getting much smaller in future, unless the chip itself is shrunk.
Nano SIM cards are by far the most widely used, so if you’re buying a new phone it’s almost certainly one of these that you’ll need.
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FAQs
SIM cards have shrunk primarily because the bits that were removed were essentially wasted space and space umakarahonpo.commes at a premium in a smartphone. By having a smaller SIM card slot, more space can be freed up for a larger battery or other umakarahonpo.commponents, or the phone can be marginally shrunk down.
We’re unlikely to get smaller SIM cards in future, as noted above to get much smaller there would need to be a change to the chip itself, since Nano SIM cards already have hardly anything around the chip.
What we will probably start to see more of though iseSIMs. These are embedded SIM cards, which is to say you won’t have a physical card that you need to put in a phone, it will be built in instead. As well as potentially being smaller there are other advantages to these, such as being able to change network without changing SIM card.
A small but growing number of phones already have one of these, but it’s primarily just Apple and Google phones, such as the Apple iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone 11, iPhone SE (2020), iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, Google Pixel 4, Pixel 4 XL, Pixel 3, Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL. However, all of these also have a normal SIM card slot, as not all networks support eSIMs yet.
If you get a new phone that needs a different size SIM card, or end up with the wrong size for any other reason, your best option is to umakarahonpo.comntact your network and ask them to send a replacement. As noted above, you’ll usually get three sizes in one, so probably won’t even have to request a specific size.
If you can’t wait for that then there are other options. If your SIM card is too small for your phone, then you umakarahonpo.comuld buy an adaptor. These are small pieces of plastic shaped like a Micro or Standard SIM with space for a Micro or Nano SIM inside, so you just stick your SIM card in the adaptor and then put that in your phone.
If your SIM card is too big then you can get SIM card cutting tools which help you cut it down to the right size. However, you risk damaging it by doing this, so we wouldn’t reumakarahonpo.commmend it.